Personal

I am very, very hard on myself. 2017 has been an incredibly difficult year and, as a result, has led to feelings of me feeling useless.

This is a working document of all my successes during this year. They may be minimal, but I have shown a lot of progress.

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Mental Health

I got shit done

I was able to find a medication that worked with my anxiety symptoms.

While it was triggering, I was able to get the worst of my dental issues treated.

I was calmer and more assertive

This relapse, I was able to stay calm when I started getting delusional and dissociative symptoms. It did cause stress by raising a lot of uncomfortable emotions but that acknowledgement meant I could get help quickly.

I was able to be more assertive about my health issues without crying

I was able to recognize that I couldn’t afford a psychologist, and worked with my job network to find an affordable service. I am also working hard with that psychologist now that I’m able to.

I was kinder to myself when at my sickest – even if I was still pretty critical

I was a lot more patient and kinder to myself while waiting for the medication to kick in. I wasn’t always nice, as I was struggling with energy due to both a low dose of medication and poor sleep. But not as harsh as I’ve previously been.

Social

I identified the need to find more social support and made efforts to join groups, including looking for a support group for social anxiety. I’ve had mixed success due to being broke, but that isn’t a reflection on me.

Photography

I have been able to ask for permission when doing some kinds of street photography

I was able to volunteer to photograph two small events, which was hugely triggering. Despite that, I returned to street photography a month later.

Nature

I was able to reconnect with my field naturalist club.

I’m not birding as much. When I do, I will engage in chit chat with fellow nature enthusiasts.

Other:

I went out with Glenns side of the family twice, despite being triggered.

Professional

I have relaunched my main site and have a concrete focus, after chopping and changing so much over the past year. I feel confident in what I’m doing and can see how everything fits together. I attribute this to getting my cognitive function back. I’m starting to rebuild my online network and the one blog post I wrote was received well.

I wrote the Bloggers To Watch post for the first time in years. Again, it had minimal success but I wrote it as I was changing medication.

With street photography, I’ve made a lot of progress. I’m more savvy about the work I’m doing – letting my professional experience with marketing show. I have been able to get a lot of exposure due to photographing niche events and tagging the right accounts. This hasn’t led to money, and has limited success online, but it demonstrates that I know what I’m doing.

I launched two niche affiliate sites. Both aren’t getting any traffic, but I overcame many obstacles in setting them up. By doing that, I have different action plans to leverage that work.

I have been a useful contributor to blogging Facebook groups, and people have appreciated my links to naturalist resources. This demonstrates that my knowledge brings value.

[Ironically, this section was at the top of the page but yet still felt uncomfortable drawing attention to it. Curious.]